Following the largest prisoner swap since the end of the Cold War, a number of Americans still remain behind bars in Russia.
Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former United States Marine Paul Whelan were released from Russian custody Wednesday in the historic prisoner swap, but several U.S. citizens remain.
Here are the major known American prisoners in Russian custody:
Marc Fogel
Fogel, an American teacher from Butler County, Pennsylvania, was detained in Russia in August 2021 after trying to enter the country with a small amount of medical marijuana. Though a grassroots movement has attempted to get the U.S. to designate him as “wrongfully detained,” such a request has not been fulfilled.
Pennsylvania lawmakers have repeatedly lobbied for his case. Reps. Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA), Mike Kelly (R-PA), Chris Deluzio (D-PA), and Sens. Bob Casey (D-PA) and John Fetterman (D-PA) signed a joint letter asking for Fogel to be included in Wednesday’s prisoner swap.
“As news of a potential prisoner exchange is being reported, we urge that any swap include Pennsylvania’s Marc Fogel, along with Paul Whelan and Evan Gershkovich,” they said. “Marc is a Pennsylvania teacher with severe health issues who has been unjustly imprisoned in a Russian prison for three years, and as the congressional members who represent Marc and his family, we have been pushing to bring Marc home as quickly as possible. As negotiations are ongoing with the Russian Federation, we respectfully request that any potential prisoner swap include Marc Fogel.”
Fogel’s mother was supposed to get onstage with former President Donald Trump during his July 13 Butler rally but was prevented from doing so due to the assassination attempt on Trump’s life.
Gordon Black
Black, 34, a U.S. Army Staff Sgt stationed in South Korea, went AWOL in June and flew to Vladivostok to see his Russian girlfriend. Russian media reported that he then got into a physical altercation with his girlfriend and stole the equivalent of around $115. He was arrested and sentenced to nearly four years in prison.
The military later confirmed that it had cut off Black’s pay after his arrest.
Robert Woodland
Woodland, a Russian-born dual Russia-U.S. citizen, was arrested in January for allegedly trafficking a large number of illegal drugs into the country. He was sentenced to 12 1/2 years in a maximum security penal colony in July.
Woodland claimed that he first visited Russia to find his mother but then decided to move there.
Ksenia Khavana
Khavana, 33, a Russian-born dual Russia-U.S. citizen, was arrested while visiting Russia in January on treason charges. She was accused of “proactively” raising funds “subsequently used to purchase tactical medicine, equipment, weapons, and ammunition by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.”
Khavana disputed the charges, claiming she was only donating funds to humanitarian groups. She once donated $51.80 to the New York-based non-profit Razom. It’s unknown if the charges stem from this donation.
The Los Angeles resident was visiting her family in Russia as she did at least once per year, this time for a two-week trip to spend time with her 90-year-old grandmother, parents, and younger sister.
David Barnes
Barnes, 66, was detained in Yekaterinburg, Russia, in January 2022. He was visiting his sons in Russia, where his ex-wife had taken them. He was sentenced to 21 years in prison over claims he sexually abused his two sons in Houston between 2014 and 2018.
“The American’s wife said that he repeatedly raped his sons born in 2010 and 2014. He committed crimes in the United States in the cities of Houston and the Woodlands from 2014 to 2018, when the boys were visiting him,” the pro-Kremlin Pravda reported.
The sexual abuse claims were previously dismissed by Texas investigators, leading supporters to decry the conviction. His lawyer, Gleb Glinka, said he was “shocked” by the sentence.
“We thought that there was considerable doubt about what happened and both the verdict itself and the prison term was entirely unexpected,” he said.
Robert Gilman
Gilman, a former Marine, was arrested in 2022 for allegedly assaulting a police officer while drunk in the city of Voronezh. He was originally sentenced to 4 1/2 years in prison, but the sentence was reduced to 3 1/2 years on appeal.
Gilman is facing further charges of disrupting the work of a penitentiary facility and assaulting an investigator after allegedly punching three different prison staff and attacking a criminal investigator, the Moscow Times reported.
Gilman claims he was being poisoned by “radioactive material” and feared for his life.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Eugene Spector
Spector, a Russian-born U.S. citizen and medical company executive, was sentenced to three and a half years in prison over his alleged role in bribing former Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich in September 2022. The following year, he was hit with new espionage charges, which carry a significantly longer sentence.
The details of the new accusations of espionage were not made public.
